Follow Me Down
by InsertCleverNicknameHere
Summary: It's childish to be afraid of the dark... or is it? After the TARDIS goes haywire, the Doctor and two accidental stowaways land on the space freighter Mercury. But when the crew starts mysteriously disappearing one by one, the Doctor must find a way to save both the crew and his stowaways from an invisible threat.
1. Follow Me Down Prologue

**Prologue**

* * *

 **A/n: Hey guys! First and foremost, thank you guys so much for reading! It's been a while since I've published something so please forgive me for my unpolished writing. Secondly, this story takes place in between Hell Bent and The Pilot for the Doctor. Last off this story is named after a song by Colony House. They're really good and I encourage you to look them up.**

* * *

"What's the point if I keep losing control.

I'm as dark as night again

Come and find me if I'm laying low, don't let me go no

You've got to catch me before I break"

 _Follow Me Down_ by Colony House

* * *

The TARDIS always seemed to know what the Doctor needed. That wasn't necessarily always what the Doctor _wanted_ , but it was always exactly what he needed.

He tried to keep that in mind as he landed in the wrong place for the umpteenth time in a row.

For some reason, the TARDIS had an aversion to the entire country of Belgium, because each time he'd try to land there he'd end up some other place on the planet. His latest go at it had put him in southeast America.

He leaned over the hexagonal control panel and peered into the monitor. It was a gloomy day. Rain poured down in a thick curtain that prevented you from seeing twenty feet in front of you. The date on the monitor read September 17th, 2017. On the opposite corner of the monitor the location Nashville, Tennessee, United States, Earth shown in Gallifreyan.

He ran a hand through his ever greying hair. _Definitely not Belgium. Of course not Belgium, that would be too easy._

The Doctor slammed his hand down on the console and the TARDIS quivered in response. He knew why she wasn't letting him go there. It's because of who was there.

The Impossible Girl

It had been six months since the diner incident and he'd spent every moment of those last six months trying to track her down. Not sleeping, barely eating, using every resource in time in space trying to find her. And finally after six long months he had a lead.

A photo of Clara in front of the Atomium popped up on the Wikipedia page for the 1954 world fair. _Of all the places he'd searched apparently Wikipedia hadn't been one of them._ So now he had a date and a place. He was so close that the hair on his arms were standing up. But the TARDIS wouldn't let him get there. As if his time with Clara was a book and the final chapter had already been written. But the Doctor would be damned if he let fate decide when his time with her was done.

He ran over to one side on the control panel and began furiously typing in the coordinates for Brussels, Belgium, 1954 when he heard the door to the TARDIS swing open.

 _Oh crap_

He peered his head around the console to see two people, a man and a woman, standing in the doorway wide-eyed.

"Who the hell are you," the Doctor questioned, accent flaring.

* * *

Bevvie hated doing inventory. Like _really_ hated doing inventory. Out of all the jobs that the crew of the Mercury had to do, Inventory was probably the worst. She could stand loading and unloading. It was a lot of heavy lifting but that wasn't too bad. She could even stand doing dishes because it was only a six person crew excluding herself. But doing inventory was so freaking time consuming. Company policy stated that inventory had to checked before docking, while docked, after the unloading transaction, then after they'd left port. This run through was the last, and after three other times Bevvie was REALLY tired and wanted to get back to her quarters for a warm bath.

On top of all that, the cargo hold gave her the creeps, which was strange. Bevvie wasn't the easily scared type. When she was a young girl on Korros, Bevvie was the fearless tom boy - not scared of anything or anyone. There was just something off about the dimly lit cargo hold. As if a monster from one of those old cheesy horror movies was going to hop out from the shadows and tear her limb from limb.

She kicked herself, it was childish to be afraid of the dark.

She tried to focus on the insanely dull task at hand. She scanned another barcode on one of the crates with her inventory device. According to her screen the crate contained, packs of cigarettes.

Oh God how good that sounded. She hadn't had a cig since the Mercury had left Korros four months ago. She considered getting a pack at the last place they docked, but ultimately decided against it. Her big sister Lucie had been begging her to stop for ages. "Those things will end up killing you," she always said. When she left Bevvie promised her sister she'd quit by the time she got home.

 _But One more pack isn't going to kill me._

With that thought in mind, she flipped the lid of the crate open and cut the plastic holding all the different packs together. Carefully she extracted one pack from the hundreds that were packed together. She held it up close to her face and started scrutinizing the cover. The artwork on the pack made it look like a playing card, showing an ace of spades. Bevvie always thought it was funny, the way they branded the things.

Suddenly, Bevvie got the feeling that something very bad was about to happen. She almost called for help, but she couldn't it was if some cosmic terror was preventing her from speaking. She began to run back to the door, but she didn't make it. A searing pain shot up Bevvie's leg - a pain that felt like her flesh was being ripped from the bone. The shear pain of it caused Bevvie to lose her balance and she fell face first onto the cold metal floor. She tried to scream, but she couldn't. Maybe it was shock or maybe there really was supernatural force trying to ensure her demise. The pain had spread now, moving from her leg up her hip and reaching her mid stomach.

The burning sensation was already too much for her to bear and it hadn't even reached her arms yet. Bevvie began to feel the black specs of unconsciousness tickle the back of her skull. Her eyesight began dimming as she surrendered the fight of staying awake. The last thing she saw before she went unconscious was the cigarette pack laying next to her.

 _Lucie always told me that these things were going to kill me._

* * *

 **A/n: So what did you guys think? Like I said this is my first fic in a while so it's probably really unpolished. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE review and tell me what you think. Questions are also very welcome! Next chapter should be out soon. Love you all!**


	2. Follow Me Down Chapter 1

**Follow Me Down Chapter 1**

 **A/N: Hey guys! So this chapter was really difficult to write for me. One of my biggest problems with story telling just in general is pacing, and it doesn't help that this is quite literally my first stab at writing a coherent story in a over a year and a half. This chapter does so many different things and introduces so many different characters that it was hard to develop the plot while still giving proper time to introduce all of the new characters and set up the rest of the story. Anyways here is my best attempt at Follow Me Down Chapter 1!**

* * *

It's bigger on the inside. That was the only thing Sean Speakman could bring himself to think at the moment. It was bigger on the inside. And not in the way that a house is more spacious on the inside than it looks like on the outside. It was actually, properly bigger on the inside.

Sean and his girlfriend Sara had stumbled into the phone booth to try to find some shelter from the torrential downpour that seemed to have come from absolutely nowhere. Now he was staring into an impossibly large room that looked like something straight out of an H.G. Wells novel.

"Who the hell are you?!"

He was so busy gawking at the existence of the room itself that he almost didn't notice the man standing there. He was about six feet tall with wild grey hair that went in every direction. He looked pale, almost sick. Sort of like Sean did after going on those binges where he'd play nothing but Mass Effect for hours on end, then look up and realize it was daylight outside.

"You know what, it doesn't really matter, because you'll be leaving right now," he said as he started pacing towards Sean.

Suddenly the whole floor exploded in movement, Sara starts screaming, and Sean dove headfirst back into reality. With all of the impossible things going on Sean had forgotten that she was there. He reaches over to her and grabs her arm in an attempt to keep her stabilized but she'd already grabbed onto the railing beside her and ended up stabilizing him more than anything else. Sean's attention snapped back to the center of the room where the man was dancing around a hexagonal console, fiddling with an assortment of buttons and switches and shouting an almost impressive amount of expletives.

Finally the man slammed his fist down on a big green button and the whole floor slammed to a stop. The sudden shock of it sent Sean reeling down the stairs in front of him and on to the cold metal grated floor.

Sean laid there for a moment, disoriented from the fall before he felt impossibly strong hands pick him up from the ground and push him against the metal console. He came face to face with the man's wrinkled face.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my TARDIS."

Sara, who was still clutching the railing despite the lack of movement, told the man to let Sean go, but the man simply told her to hush before turning back to Sean.

"I repeat, who are you and what are you doing on my ship?"

Sean, still VERY confused and slightly scared managed to compose himself, "look I have no problem with telling you but first let me go."

The man looked at him for a second, and then let go of him, looking rather ashamed that his first response had been violence.

The man looked at Sean, the fire in his eyes dying down to a calm level.

"I'm sorry," he said, Scottish accent blaring, "it's been a long few days... I'm the Doctor." He held out a steady hand which Sean took and shook cautiously. Something about this man told Sean that he could be very dangerous if he wanted to be.

"Doctor who?"

"Just the Doctor," the Doctor answered, sounding like he was tired of answering that question all of the time.

This time Sara, who had finally let go of the railing and begun to walk towards the two, piped in. "Well that's nice and all, but can you please tell me where the hell we are?" Sean recognized that tone, Sara was pissed.

The Doctor smirked a little and Sean noted how the Doctor seemed to sort of enjoy the fact that Sara was a little demanding.

The Doctor turned back to Sean, "I asked first."

The Doctor began pacing and working on the console as Sean began to talk.

"Well we were walking to Cannery Ballroom for a concert and then it started pouring down rain. We ran through an alleyway looking for cover and we saw a phone booth, and walked into it and then we were here."

By this time the Doctor had checked a screen that protruded from the console, and was now walking towards the door.

"Now you answer our question," Sean demanded.

Placing his hands on the door, the Doctor shouted over his shoulder, "Well it's not a phone booth first off. And secondly I don't know, but I fully intend to find out." With that, he opened the door and walked into the engulfing darkness beyond it.

* * *

The Doctor looked around, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Already he could see what looked like the inner workings of a space ship.

With surprising courage, the man that had accidentally stumbled into the TARDIS earlier emerged. The man looked back at the TARDIS, just making sure that it looked as he remembered it.

"How does it do that," he asked in awe.

The Doctor, who was looking at a very interesting piece of human machinery, looked back at the man. "Oh that," he said as if not knowing what he was talking about, "elementary my dear, Watson. It's called Dimensional Transcendentalism."

Still eyes fixed on the TARDIS, the man replied, "Sean."

"Huh?"

"My name, it's Sean. And my girlfriend's name is Sara."

On cue Sara emerged from the TARDIS, a little more cautious than Sean's did as the Doctor pretended to turn his attention back to the generator he was standing beside.

"How is it bigger on the inside?" Sara apparently hadn't heard the same question asked five seconds before.

"Dimensional Transcendentalism," Sean told her as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oh I like him," the Doctor thought.

"So can you please tell me where we are and how we got here," when she spoke the Doctor recognized her tone. She was trying to stay in control of things, and she was so out of her depth she didn't know what to do.

"It appears that we are on a spaceship of some sort," the Doctor answered. He looked back at the couple to gage their reaction. They both seemed shocked, but in different ways. Sara seemed scared, but Sean seemed excited and curious.

He looked at them and actually paid attention to them for the first time. Sean stood about 5'8", skinny, and had short brown hair. The Doctor could see the callouses on the fingers of his left hand and recognized them as guitarist's callouses. He had tan skin, and a face full of freckles. He was wearing slim fit jeans and a Colony House graphic tee.

Sara stood beside Sean, and just about a half an inch shorter than him. She had long blonde hair that dropped down to her shoulder. Piercing grey eyes stood out from her porcelain skin.

They two of them were very interesting. Sean seemed very calm and collected and despite just being told that he was on a spaceship, he seemed to not be startled in the least. Sara on the other hand seemed headstrong and defiant, but still sort of startled when she was out of her element like she was.

 _She reminds me of Clara._

As he thought that, the door to the room slid open, and white light exploded into the dark room. A figure stood in the doorway, and a very commanding voice told the trio to get on their knees.

The Doctor huffed and did as the voice commanded as he told himself that today could seriously not get any longer.

* * *

 _This day could not be any longer._

Sara tried to act brave as God-knows-who had marched her, Sean, and some crazy man who calls himself the Doctor God-Knows-Where. It had already been one heck of a day. She had gotten rained on, accidentally stowed away on some ship of some sort that was somehow bigger on the inside. And then on top of all that, she had apparently landed on another spaceship where she was then taken captive along with Sean and the Doctor and the three of them were now handcuffed to a bed.

And worst of all was her clothes were still drenched from the rain.

"So if you don't mind me asking," she spoke in a not so nice and calm way, "could you please explain to me, where we are and how we got here. And more importantly how the hell we are going to get out."

The Doctor sighed as if the question was unreasonable before answering, "The TARDIS, the ship you stumbled into earlier, it's a time-space ship that can travel anywhere and anywhen in the universe. And as to where we are, it would appear by the architecture that we are on a spaceship in the late 21st century."

Sara stared over at the man in disbelief for a second, and everything in her wanted to scream. She wanted to get up and shake this man until she felt better. And the worst part was Sean was completely calm. He had been through the same experience she had. He saw an apparent time machine that was bigger on the inside, he was taken from the streets of Nashville to God-knows-where, and now he was handcuffed to a bed, and he seemed completely fine with all of it.

Sean, probably sensing Sara's fear and frustration, decided to speak up for her, "so why are we being held captive."

"I honestly don't know," the Doctor told them almost ominously, "but I intend to find out."

As if on cue, the door slid open and in walked the man Sara instantly recognized as the man who had taken them captive. He had dark brown skin and very intense green eyes that would be very lovely if they didn't belong to a man who might kill her. He had black hair that curled tightly on top of his head, and he stood at about six feet. His clothing was very simple, and he donned a long black coat with what looked like a worn military patch on the sleeve.

"I'm Captain Nick Romero of the cargo transporter Mercury," he introduced himself, his voice all the bit commanding as earlier but with a British accent that Sara didn't hear earlier, "as of two hours ago a member of my crew has gone missing. Now I don't want to assume you three had anything to do with that... but you aren't supposed to be on my ship. So here's the deal, you have one chance to tell me why and how you're on this ship. If you lie, I will assume that you're the one who took Bevvie and I will treat you accordingly. Understand?"

A deafening silence filled the room and Sara all of a sudden found it very hard to breath. Suppose that they did tell the truth, they would be saying that they accidentally stumbled onto a time machine, accidentally landed on a spaceship, where they proceeded to accidentally trespass.

 _Yep, he's definitely going to kill us._

The silence seemed to go on forever as Sara thought of what she could possibly say to get out of this mess. Everything felt like a dream, as if she was going to wake up back in her dorm room in Alabama covered in sweat and terribly late for Biology.

She was just about to start speaking when the Doctor cut in.

"I'm the Doctor," He said in a very confident manner, as if he was God himself and as if every word he spoke brought life and death, "I'm over two-thousand years old and I'm a Time traveler from the planet Gallifrey. This lovely young couple stumbled on to my time ship earlier. My ship then malfunctioned and brought us here... any questions?"

There was another moment of silence, as Captain Nick Romero stood there in apparent contemplation. He seemed to believe that the Doctor believed what he was saying, but thought that he could either be a really good lier or just a complete psychopath.

Romero let out a sigh and his shoulder's slumped. "Thank you," he said, his tone changing from commanding to sorrowful, "I really wasn't looking forward to killing anyone today."

He reached deep into his coat pockets and fished out a small metal key, which he used to unlock their handcuffs. After they were freed from their bonds, Nick led them out of the room they were in, into a larger one.

The thing that seemed the oddest about this room to Sara was the lighting. Every time she would see a science fiction movie (which albeit was not very often) the spaceship would be lit by fluorescent white lights, like those in a hospital. However, the Mercury was lit by dim earthy light that reminded her more of the night light she had in her room when she was a child.

Sara looked around and tried to figure out the purpose of the room. It looked like a dining room and kitchen spliced with a conference room. The floor was very open, with a large oval conference table in the center. On the far side past the table, a sink and stove top sat next to what was possibly a futuristic sort of refrigerator. The side of the room right beside the room had many different corridors that all branched out to different areas of the ship.

Around the table, stood what Sara only assumed were the crew of the mercury. Sara honestly figured they'd have color coded uniforms, like the crew of the USS Enterprise. Instead they looked more like a bunch of homeless people than a crew of a spaceship. Their clothes were ragged and torn, drab and dull like those of a mechanic or a construction worker. Their faces were mixed with emotions: worry, anger, anxiety… and they were all staring at her.

"They had nothing to do with Bevvie's disappearance," Romero tried to break the tension in the room, but it didn't seem to work. The artificial air of the Mercury was still poisoned with a whole concoction of negative emotions.

The next person to speak up was one of the crew of the Mercury. He was a stick of a man with ghost white skin oily dirty blonde hair. "Then why the hell are they on this ship."

Captain Romero opened his mouth to explain, but the Doctor managed to get an answer out first.

"My name is John Smith, Codename: The Doctor," He pulled what looked like a badge holder from his pocket and flashed it at the tall, sickly looking man.

The man snatched it from the Doctor's hands and held it close to his face for inspection. "You work for UNIT," the man asked in disbelief.

"I do," the Doctor said, thinking on his feet, "In fact, I'm their head scientific advisor, and these are my two research techs, Sean and Sara."

This time another member of the Mercury crew spoke up. She was tall and fit, with black hair that had square bangs and was pulled up in a ponytail. "What type of scientist gets two research techs?"

"Only the best ones," the Doctor replied with gusto. He was starting to show a charming side that Sara hadn't seen up until now. "We were using an experimental piece of equipment that can faze through matter and accidentally happened to board your ship. Now you said something about a missing person?"

Nick looked at him, obviously not being okay with the fact that the Doctor had just lied to his crew. However, he must've assumed that it was easier to go along with the lie than to tell the truth, as he let it slide.

"Yeah Bevvie," Nick responded, sort of sorrowfully, "she's been missing for five hours. The last time we docked was seven hours ago, and she was with me when we took off, so she has to be on the ship."

Sean, apparently feeling confident enough in his situation at the moment decided to speak up next. "What about escape pods?"

Everyone went silent and for a second and Sara assumed Sean had offended them in some way (he actually had a talent in finding roundabout ways to insult people). Another one of the crew, a girl with blood red hair and a pale, freckled-riddled face, decided to answer him. "This is a cargo transport, it doesn't have an escape pod."

"Oh," Sean said, trying to downplay his ignorance on the subject, "Sorry, just wasn't using my head."

Sara leaned over and whispered in Sean's ear, "Maybe you should let the Doctor do the talking."

The Doctor took control of the conversation once again. "Which one of you saw Bevvie last?"

A small woman from the other side of the room raised her hand as if she was in a classroom, which Sara thought was a little odd, but considering she was supposedly who-knew-how-many years into the future, she decided to let it go. Who knew, maybe raising your hand was a social norm in this time.

"Hello there," the Doctor said in a sweet voice, "raising your hand isn't necessary. What's your name?"

"Hello, I'm Sol Hakido," Sol spoke in a very slight voice. It reminded Sara of how she would talk when she was babysitting and didn't want to wake a sleeping child. "I was the last one to see Bev. She said she was going down to the cargo hold to check inventory."

The Doctor snapped his finger, "There we go then, that's where we'll check."

"Don't you think we've already looked there," the skinny man said in a way that Sara didn't particularly like at all.

The shade being thrown his way from this man didn't seem to faze the Doctor very much. She noticed a smirk growing across his face, "Well you didn't have me last time."

* * *

It shocked the Doctor how quickly Sean and Sara were adapting to their surroundings. In the past 40 minutes, they had discovered that aliens were real, learned that time travel was possible, and volunteered to help search for a missing person on a spaceship. Their resilience reminded him slightly of the Ponds.

And on top of that the cargo bay was really creepy.

The only real light source in the room were the dim white bar lights coming from the walls. Shadows casted by the crates of all different shapes and sizes danced up the metallic grey walls.

Something was very wrong, the Doctor could taste it, feel it. It tasted metallic, like blood and felt as if lightning filled the air. The worst thing was he had felt it before. Sometime lifetimes ago, he had sensed this exact feeling, but he couldn't quite put his finger on when.

The Doctor's thoughts were interrupted by Sara speaking. Her voice echoed through the metallic room. "So why would the captain of a cargo transporter carry a gun and own multiple pairs of handcuffs?"

 _Oh, she really is clever._

"I was a member of Her Majesty's Armed Forces during the Cyberwar," Nick turned around to backpedal so that he could face Sara when he spoke. "After the war, I retired and bought a cargo freighter. Figured it would be a nice change of pace after getting shot at."

"My Dad was in the military," Sean paused for a moment before continuing, "I mean, not the same one."

Nick turned back around, "so you guys are from another time right? Where—" he paused for a second in thought, "I mean, when are you from."

Sean smiled a bit at the saying, then continued. "2017 to be exact." Sean pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and flashed it at Nick.

Nick continues talking but the Doctor stops listening.

Something was very wrong. That feeling the Doctor had felt had begun to intensify and was now filling every fiber of his being, overwhelming him with a sense of dread. So he did the thing he did best when he didn't know something, he whipped out his sonic screwdriver and started scanning.

Blue light and a sonar noise emitted from the end. The Doctor scanned the screwdriver across the room, the sonar noise increasing in rate until it was a steady stream of noise.

"Over there, behind that crate," the Doctor pointed to the half opened crate across the room. Sean and Nick both rushed over to it and moved it out of the way.

Behind it lay the skeletal remains of an unidentified human... probably Bevvie.

Nick stared at the bones in a mixture of disbelief and horror. "Is that Bevvie?"

"Presumably," the Doctor answered as he scanned the remains and read off the readings. "Human, female, age: 23."

"Yeah that's her," Nick looked at the body obviously grieving the loss of his friend.

Sean was the first to speak up, "Nick, I'm sorry. I know it really doesn't mean much, but I'm sorry for your loss."

Nick looked up at him with a thankful smile, "thanks, man. It's not your fault." He then turned to the Doctor, "what the hell could have done this."

The Doctor was about to answer when the ship lurched and the cargo hold went completely black.

* * *

 **A/N: Well there you go. Please review and tell me what you think! Sorry this chapter took so long to write. Hopefully the next one won't take as long.**


	3. Follow Me Down Chapter 2

**Follow Me Down Chapter 2**

Sean's head felt like it was going to explode as he lifted himself off of the cold metal ground. The bar lights that had dimly lit the cargo bay with eery white light were now flashing fire red, casting a hellish color on the room around them.

Sean turned to Sara and helped her up, "Are you okay?" Sara, still a little dazed, responded with just a nod and Sean planted a kiss on her forehead before turning to Nick, who was laying face down on the floor, and the Doctor, who had somehow managed to not get knocked down. "What the hell was that?"

"It felt like we hit something." Nick let out a large groan as he picked himself off of the ground. He raised his wrist to his mouth and talked into something that resembled a smart watch. "Sol, come in. What happened?"

The four waited a moment for Sol to respond but there was no answer, only the sound of a screaming alarm reverberating through the metal room at the same tempo the red emergency lights were flashing. Nick again spoke into his watch, "Sol, status report."

This time the com channel sparked to life with response. "Umm, Captain you should come up here, you're going to wanna see this." Sean recognized the voice as the girl with bangs that they had talked to earlier.

The Doctor spoke up this time, "What is it?"

"I don't know how to tell you," the girl paused, "Just… just come up here."

* * *

The trip back to where the rest of the crew was seemed longer than it did the first time, and this time they were running. Sean had always considered himself a generally athletic guy. When he had played football he completed his forty yard dash in four-point-seven seconds (the second fastest time on the team). However, somehow the two thousand year old alien man was outrunning him. Now granted, Sean didn't really know anything about the Doctor's species' physiology. For all he knew they could have super speed.

Sean turned his attention from the Doctor to the hallways that the four of them were passing through. The overhead lights that had supplied them light on the way to the cargo bay were still operating, but they were significantly dimmer. At the very end of the hallway they could see the earthy light of the conference room. Soon the four of them had ran through the conference room, and from there Nick led the way into the cockpit.

The cockpit was almost as dark than the cargo bay. Two dim overhead can lights provided a little bit of light, but the largest source of light was the main console, where an assortment of buttons shaded the room with carnival-like colors. The rest of the crew of the Mercury was gathered around the single black leather pilot's chair.

In the chair was sitting the skeletal remains of Sol.

The tall girl with bangs was the first to speak, "What could've done this?" When she spoke she sounded shocked, scared.

"I don't know, Isaboh." Nick looked at the girl, apparently named Isaboh, with large sorrowful eyes and Sean suddenly got the feeling that they were more than just crew-mates. That was the same look Sean would give Sara when something was utterly, terribly wrong. That look was the, "I-need-a-hug-and-a-kiss-and-to-lay-in-bed-all-day" look.

"I do." The Doctor's voice was commanding, like it was when Sean had first met him. As if everything he had said brought life and death. "The same thing that happened to Bevvie. Vashta Nerada."

Sean was the next to speak, "Vashta Na-what-a?"

"Vashta Nerada," the Doctor corrected, "Microscopic carnivores who travel through shadows." He paused as if thinking deep. "But they usually stay in forests… why are they here, now?"

"I don't know," Nick looked back at the Doctor, "But let's go into the conference room and… let Sol rest." The Doctor looked at Nick with knowing eyes and nodded slightly. He exited the room first, leading the rest of the group out of the room until the only ones who remained were Nick, Sean, and Sol. Nick looked down at the skeleton with sorry eyes and Sean felt the sudden urge to say something.

"Are you okay," was what Sean felt coming out of his mouth. What a stupid question. Nick had just had two friends die, he obviously was anything but okay.

Nick just looked back at Sean, his eyes turning from sorrowful to intense, "No one else…"

"What?"

"No one else dies today…" With that Nick turned and exit the room, leaving Sean alone with an empty skeleton.

* * *

The conference room was dead silent and Sara couldn't shake the feeling that she wasn't going to survive today. Just an hour ago, Sara had been safe on the streets of Nashville. This morning she had surprised Sean with tickets to go see his favorite band, Colony House. It was _supposed_ to be a good day. They were _supposed_ to go see an amazing concert and then go stay in some hotel that was way overpriced. They definitely _weren't supposed_ to stowaway on an alien time machine and then get killed by invisible space piranhas.

She looked around at the different faces filling the room. They showed a mix of confusion, sorrow, anger, all the things you deal with when you lose somebody… or two somebodies. The only person who looked different at all was Nick. He had fire in his eyes too, but it didn't look like anger. Instead it looked like sheer determination.

The Doctor started speaking in a low and delicate voice (or at least as delicate as a Scottish accent could be), "I know this is a sensitive time right now, and I'm very sorry for your loss. However, we need to focus on getting out of here alive. That's what your friends would want."

No one responded, they just looked down at the ground. The red haired girl that'd talked earlier had tears falling from her eyes, and one of her crew mates, a man with jet black hair, put his arm around her to comfort her.

Nick was the first to respond, the determination in his eyes apparent in his voice, "do you have a plan, Doctor?"

"Yes, I could use a large surge of light to incapacitate the Vashta Nerada. If I could just get to the generator room-"

The Doctor got cut off by Isaboh. "That's not going to work, there's a huge whole in the generator room wall." She paused for a second thinking about what to say next. "We must've hit whatever we hit after Sol…" Her voice started to trail off but everyone knew what she was getting at, so she decided to just stop her sentence there. "Whatever we hit punctured the generator room, so we can't go in there."

"Wait, how are we breathing?" Sara found herself saying out loud and everyone turned to look at her.

Sean starting to see what she was saying chipped in, "Yeah good point. If the room is punctured, shouldn't we all be dead from like depressurization or oxygen loss or something?"

The guy who had his arm around the red haired girl answered in a low, careful voice, "When a room is punctured, the ship automatically seals the room to prevent cabin depressurization."

Sean nodded briefly then decided to ask another question, "Why don't we all just get back in the Doctor's ship and fly away?"

"Because my ship is in the generator room." The Doctor paused for second biting on his index finger thinking of what to do, then all of a sudden his eyes lit up and he began to speak very fast and excitedly, "Spacesuits! You have to have spacesuits on board, it's legally required! Where are they?"

"There are some in the airlock- four i think- and then there are four more in the back of the cargo bay," Isaboh stated, sort of taken aback by his excitement about the spacesuits. "But how would they help us?"

The Doctor was beginning to pace back and forth very excitedly and it reminded Sara of Sean when he had a revolutionary idea about a song he was writing. "If we can get our hands on those space suits, I can use my sonic screwdriver to override the ships subroutines and unseal the generator room where I can overload the ships generator to create a flash of light that could incapacitate the Vashta Nerada!" Through that sentence he gradually crescendoed until he practically was yelling from excitement. Then, probably sensing that his excitement was in bad taste at the moment, his voice fell back down to normal volume. "I say we split into two groups, it'll be fastest. Four per team, and we each go get the suits in the opposite side of the ship."

"You're kidding my right," the man with pale skin and oily greasy blonde hair spoke up. His voice was quiet but acidic and panicked "When we hit whatever we did, the ship would have made energy cuts. The cargo bay and the airlock lights were probably the first thing to go."

"Do you have a better idea, Corey," Isaboh yelled at him, startling everyone. When he didn't respond she continued, "Yeah, I didn't think so, so shut the hell up unless you're going to be constructive!"

Everyone went silent for a second and Sara could feel the room turn bitter. The hurt and loss felt in such a short period of time seemed to pollute the air around them. The Doctor, probably trying to comfort everyone spoke next, "The Vashta Nerada aren't in a large quantity. If they were, we'd all be dead right now. No one else dies today." When he said that last part, Sara noticed that he made eye contact with Captain Romero and gave him a knowing nod.

"Alright," Nick starting speaking. When he spoke, he spoke with the authority of a captain, "The Doctor and I will both take a team. Mikey, Sean, Sara, you guys come with me. Isaboh, Corey, Emma, you guys go with the Doctor."

"Actually," Sean spoke up and Sara had the sudden urge she wasn't going to like what he was about to say. "If it's all the same with you, I'd like Sara to go with the Doctor."

 _Oh, hell no._

Sara turned to Sean, not sure what to feel. "Sean there is no way I'm not going with you."

"Look the Doctor knows what he's doing," Sean paused for a second to think of exactly what to tell her, and Sara could see that he was thinking hard, "With him, I know you'll be safe. He can protect you because he knows about these… Vashta Nevada."

"Vashta Nerada," the Doctor corrected him quietly.

Ignoring him, Sara continued, "but you _won't_ be safe."

"Please," this time his voice was almost a yell, and Sara could see the tears beginning to fill Sean's eyes. His voice cut down to a whisper, "I just need to know you're safe."

Sara looked at him. She didn't agree with this. In fact every fibre of her being was screaming at her not to leave him. But she could see the tears in his eyes, and Sean very rarely cried. He wanted her to be safe, and he thought she would be safest with the Doctor. She didn't want to leave him, but she knew how persistent he could be, and the longer they stood there arguing the more likely it was for someone else to die.

Finally she whispered, "Okay," and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. "Please be safe."

"I always am," he whispered back, Before letting go and kissing her.

"Alright, Sara can go with the Doctor," Sara heard Nick say just as Sean stopped kissing her, "Corey, you come with us. Let's move out, we should hurry."

The crew began to separate, one team going down one hallway, and the other going down the hallway that Sara knew would lead to the cargo bay. Sara looked at Sean one last time. "I love you."

He gave her a big smile and his eyes lit up in that way she loved, "I love you more." Then, he turned around and followed his group into the dark hallway.

* * *

Sara was a nervous wreck now and the Doctor could see it very clearly despite her best intentions to hide it. Not exactly that he blamed her for being a nervous wreck, the man that she loved was after all in a very dangerous situation. He was walking around a dark hallway on a ship filled with Vashta Nerada. In all honesty, Corey had been right, the probability of any of them, much less all of them, getting out of this alive was pretty much slim to none.

The Doctor kicked himself, he didn't know why, but something about him being alone brought about the pessimist in him. He didn't even remember much about Clara. He remembered the things he'd done with her. He remembered saving Gallifrey, and that she had saved his life by jumping into his time stream. He remembered that she was very dear to him, and he even remembered her face, after seeing her in that diner. But it was as if someone had hand picked the memories from his mind, as if his memories were Polaroid pictures and someone had burnt Clara out of them all. But if there was one thing he definitely remembered, it was that Clara had always kept him optimistic.

 _Don't be alone, Doctor._ The words that Amelia Pond once wrote to his eleventh self bounced around in his head. Perhaps she had known something about him that he didn't know. Perhaps she knew that the only way for him to stay positive, the only way for him to stay grounded was by having humans around. Humans, in all of their fragility and mortality, seemed to always remind him of something about himself. They always seemed to remind him that he was the Doctor, that he was the only one in the whole universe who was able to keep the monsters in the dark at bay. That's what he needed to focus on right now - keeping the monsters in the dark at bay.

The group was very close to the cargo bay now, and it seemed as if the closer they got, the darker the hallway had gotten. Down the hallway about 200 meters, the Doctor could see the open door to the cargo bay. Inside, the red emergency lights were still flashing violently, however the screaming alarm from earlier had stopped and the Doctor found himself saying a silent "thank you" to the universe because of it. However it was eerily silent now, and wished someone would start talking to provide some noise.

As if she had heard the Doctor's prayers, Sara began to speak, breathing life into the dead silence, "So how long have you guys been in space?" The Doctor could tell that she was only talking to get her mind off of Sean.

The red-haired girl, Emma, responded first with a husky voice that was surprising for her thin body, "Four months this go round, but I've been on the crew for the past year, and Isaboh has been on the crew for God-knows-how-long." When she spoke she seemed happy, which was a huge contrast from how the Doctor had seen her up till now. The Doctor assumed the cheeriness was faked.

Isaboh let out a slight smile after Emma's comment, "I was the first person Nick hired after he bought the Mercury. I remember back before he got a contract with Sorin Company, back when all of the cargo we were carrying wasn't necessarily legal." She giggled a little bit when she said that last part, and now all three girls were smiling. Emma's pseudo-cheeriness seemed to be infectious.

"Do you guys hate being on the move all the time," Sara asked them. She had started just trying to get her mind off of Sean, but now she seemed like she genuinely cared.

"I actually enjoy it," Emma said back quickly, "I grew up on a research vessel. My mom was the head scientist, and my dad was a security guard. Honestly, all I ever really knew was space travel. I actually remember one time I-"

Just as Emma began to tell her story, she stopped dead in her tracks and everyone else stopped with her.

"Is everything okay," Isaboh asked the worry apparent in her voice.

"Yeah," Emma said, obviously very worried but still trying to remain cheery, "It's just that all of a sudden I've got a really bad feeling."

The Doctor's eyes went wide and he took his Sonic Screwdriver out and started scanning her. He knew exactly what was happening, but he scanned anyways, just to make sure. The readings only confirmed his fears. "Emma," the Doctor said carefully, "The Vashta Nerada have locked on to you, and you need to remain very still."

Tears began to fill Emma's eyes again, but she retained her fake smile, "That's okay, a little rest is just what the Doctor ordered."

"Isaboh, how much farther to the space suits," his tone was now commanding. He had already promised, no one else was dies today.

"They're just inside the door to the cargo bay. We're almost there."

The Doctor looked back to judge the length to the cargo bay, they were less than 100 meters away now. If they could just make it to the spacesuits, maybe he could save her.

"Alright," when the Doctor spoke now, he made sure to try to be very comforting, "When I count to three, we are going to run down the hallway and get our spacesuits. If we can get you in your spacesuit, I can darken your visor and trick the Vashta Nerada into thinking that they've already gotten you. That'll buy us enough time until I can destroy them using the generator." Emma nodded as she heard what the Doctor said, her smile had begun to fade now. "Alright on three. One- Two- Three!"

On command, the four of them began running down the hallway towards the cargo bay, towards the thing that would've saved Emma's optimistic life. Emma ran ahead of the rest of them, running with all of the might she could possibly muster, and she had _almost_ made it. She was halfway there when she began screaming, and collapsed down on the hard metal floor. The Doctor comes up to her and kneels over her, she was screaming now and the sound was ear splitting. They three watched in horror as the flesh was torn slowly off of her bone, starting at her feet and working her way up her leg.

She was lost now, the Doctor couldn't save her. Instead he took a needle out of his bottomless coat pocket, and injected the clear liquid sedative into her neck. The sedative wouldn't save her, but at least it would ease the pain in her last few moments. He watched as the invisible Vashta Nerada moved up her body, leaving nothing but clean white bone. The wave moved up her rib cage and finally up and over her head, leaving nothing there but a clean white skeleton that wouldn't have been recognizable if the three hadn't seen Emma there in the skeleton's place only seconds before.

The Doctor let out a sigh of defeat, which wasn't something he did often, before standing up and turning back to the two remaining girls. They're faces were a mixture of horror and shock, and the Doctor knew he couldn't do anything to comfort them, he could only try to make sure they got out of this alive. Somewhat coldly, the Doctor walked towards the airlock and tells them to come along.

 _No one else dies today._

* * *

 **A/N: So there you go guys! How'd you like it? There are two more chapters left in this story and I'm very excited for you guys to see how it all ends. Please review and tell me what you guys think is going to happen to Sean and Sara. Love you guys, thanks for reading.**


	4. Follow Me Down Chapter 3

**Follow Me Down Chapter 3**

Sean considered himself a very lucky person. He'd always manage to fall ass backwards into everything he did. This apparently included meeting an alien, discovering time travel, and somehow magically not dying while marooned on a space ship infested with microscopic space sharks (although there was still time for the latter to happen).

Sean walked beside Nick, well behind both Mikey and Corey, the other two people in the group, and tried to deduce what was Nick was thinking. It was very apparent to Sean that Nick and Isaboh were _together._ Why then, would Nick order Isaboh to go with the Doctor instead of taking her with him? Sean laughed silently for a moment after remembering that he had done the exact same thing with Sara. It wasn't because Nick and Sean didn't want their significant others with them, it was because something about the Doctor made them feel like everything was going to be okay.

 _I should be terrified_ , was the only thing that Sean could think. He should have been scared out of his mind. What if he died here on the Mercury? What if they all did? Sean and Sara's families wouldn't have closure. They wouldn't even have bodies to bury. Instead they'd probably spend their whole lives thinking that Sean and Sara were kidnapped, and sold in some sort of human trafficking ring. But he knew he wasn't going to die here, he felt it. Neither was Sara, she was with the Doctor.

It was odd but there was something comforting about the two-thousand year-old Doctor. Because he was there, Sean had a perfect calmness about everything. If Sean was in in his right mind, Sean would have been terrified trying to keep Sara alive. He would have not let her leave his sight. But there was something about the Doctor that told Sean that no matter what happened, Sean and Sara and everyone else were going to get off of this screaming metal death-trap alive. Somehow.

Sean looked ahead of him to Mikey, he had been looking very down since they had left the conference room. Not that Sean blamed him, he had a right to be completely scared silly. Any sane human being in this situation would be.

"It'll be okay, Mikey," Sean found himself saying, "the Doctor is going to get us out of this alive. I promise you."

Mikey looked up at him and gave him a slight smile, though it was obviously a sad one. "It's not that," his smile faded back to a frown, "It's just- Well Sol and I- We had decided we were going to go get a drink together when we docked next. We had been discussing it for a while... She wanted to wait to start dating until we got off duty, so it didn't complicate things."

"I'm sorry, Mikey," Nick said, sorrow evident in his voice, "I had no idea, man."

"It's okay. Just this morning there were seven of us. Now there's five. That's hard, y'know?"

Sean wanted to say that he knew, but instead he just nodded. In reality he didn't know, he had no idea. He had only met Sol once, and he had never met Bevvie. The only person Sean had known before today was Sara and she was safe with the Doctor. But Sean felt for the crew of the Mercury. He felt their pain, and grieved because they were grieving. He only wished that grieving with them was enough to make them hurt less.

He once again turned his attention to Nick. Nick was remarkably strong right now, and Sean got the feeling that it was because he wanted to be a good leader. Sean had never led the crew of a space ship, but Sean sort of understood what it was like to have to constantly be the one who was strong for everyone else. It was the same thing he did when Sara had lost her grandfather. He had felt rundown and exhausted, but he didn't tell her, because she needed him to be strong while she grieved. That was what Nick was doing. He was being strong so his crew could grieve.

Nick's wrist comm crackled to life and woke Sean from his pondering.

"Status update," the distorted voice of Isaboh filled the silent hallway around them. Both Mikey and Corey turned around and gathered around Nick, making sure to be able to hear the communicator.

Sean noticed Nick's face light up when he heard Isaboh's voice and it confirmed Sean's theory that they were together. "We are doing good, we're almost at our spacesuits, then we will make our way back to the conference room." He paused as if he was holding back from saying how glad he was to see her. "How are you guys doing?"

There was no response, and Sean's heart skipped a beat. Something was wrong with them and for the first time that day, Sean felt fear. What if the Vashta Nerada got Sara? What if she died there on the Mercury, far away from Sean? Sean got the sudden urge to throw up, as he thought of Sara dying cold and alone, all because Sean had sent her to go with the Doctor instead of her staying by him.

Nick repeated himself, "Isaboh give me a status update." There was another long pause that went on for a lifetime and Sean's panic grew with every second of it. He thought of how he was going to explain her death to her family and how he was going to cope with her being gone.

Finally the long awaited response come from Isaboh, "They got Emma." Sean breathed a sigh of release and the feeling that he was going to throw up got a little better. Now he just felt light headed.

"The Vashta Nerada killed Emma," Isaboh repeated. She was obviously in shock and Sean felt bad for being relieved that it was Emma who was now dead and not Sara. "We saw it. They tore all of her flesh clean off of her bone." Isaboh paused again and Sean suspected she was doing her best not to cry. "Nick it was awful."

"Are you okay," Nick asked, his voice was delicate and sweet when he asked this.

"Yeah, we're all okay…" She paused once more, "just please be careful Nick."

"You too, get your spacesuits and meet us back at the Hub."

"What's the point," this time Sean heard Corey speak, which was odd because it was the first time he had spoken since Isaboh had shut him down back in the conference room. When he spoke, it was almost a whine. He reached for Nick's waist and Sean wasn't very sure as to what was happening until Nick's handgun was in Corey's hand pointed at Corey's head.

Everyone stood there in shock as Corey held the metallic black handgun shakily against the side of his skull.

"What the hell are you doing," Mikey was the first to yell.

Corey was crying, and Sean couldn't tell if it was because he was terrified, or because he was grieving. "What's the point," Corey screamed in between sobs. "What is the point of living another hour just so I can die? If I'm going to die, I'd much rather it be quick."

Corey was crying and his hands were trembling. Sean could tell he was terrified beyond anything he'd ever felt before. Rightfully so, he'd had three friends die in under two hours, he had a very good reason to be scared. He had a very good reason to think he was going to die. But he hadn't pulled the trigger yet, that meant there was doubt as to whether or not he really wanted to kill himself or not. If that was true then Sean could talk him down. If that was true, Sean thought, then maybe he could save him.

Sean waited a second and gathered his thoughts before starting to speak. When he spoke, he did so in a low delicate voice, "Corey, you don't want to do this."

"Y-yes I do," he stuttered back. Corey locked eyes with Sean and Sean could see the plea for help in his eyes. He wanted someone to talk him down, he wanted someone to tell him it was all going to be okay. Someone just had to be the one to do it.

"Look, I know this looks bad right now-"

"Damn right it does," Corey cut him off but Sean continued.

"Look I know things look bad right now, but you don't need to do this."

Sean began to inch closer to Corey, his hand outstretched in a plea for Corey to hand over the gun. As Sean inched closer, Corey's grip on the gun tightened, "What's the point? We're all dead either way, right?"

Sean once again felt sick, he didn't particularly even like Corey, but Sean was not in any way okay with watching him die. "Look we're so close," Sean said in desperation, "All we have to do is get to our spacesuits, get back to the Hub. Then the Doctor can save us."

"What about Emma," Corey sobbed, he wasn't yelling anymore, but instead he spoke almost as if he was a kid, begging for his mother, "the Doctor couldn't save her."

Sean continued to inch closer and he was now close enough to touch Corey. He thought about just trying to snatch the gun from him, but he was afraid that the gun would go off and kill Corey or him in the process. "Look," Sean began to speak. This time, he spoke in a whisper, "I know things look bad right now. I know hope looks lost, but it isn't. Hope is never lost. You just need to hang on for a little bit longer. We're almost there. Just hold on a while longer and you'll make it out of here alive." Sean paused for a second praying that what he said had hit home before adding, "I promise," to the end.

Sean's hand was still outstretched, "give me the gun, Corey. Please." Corey stayed still for what felt like the longest moment of Sean's entire life. Corey had stopped crying and was now staring at Sean with a terrified expression. "Please," Sean whispered again this time a plead.

Corey took the gun from his head and handed it to Sean. Sean let out a large sigh of relief as he handed the gun back to Nick while Mikey came up and put his arm around Corey, holding him close as Corey continued to sob.

"Come on," Nick whispered gently, "let's get to the airlock and get our spacesuits."

* * *

The walk back to the hub from the airlock was near awkward amounts of quiet, and Sean think he preferred it that way. It had been a very eventful day for him and he could use some quiet. On top of that, he was still working off the adrenaline high from talking Corey down earlier. He hadn't noticed it at the time, but Sean's hands were completely unable to stop shaking. It was the same way that his hands would shake after drinking a few too many cups of coffee.

And if Sean was completely honest, he loved it.

The high he had felt when he had managed to talk Corey down was completely unlike anything he'd ever experienced. It made him feel invincible, like he could take on the world and somehow come out on top. The worst part was that he wanted to do it again, like Corey's attempted suicide was some sort of twisted amusement park ride that Sean could ride as many times as he wanted.

Sean let out a sigh and his breath fogged up the glass of his helmet. What Sean had pictured when he had heard the word "spacesuit," was the big, clunky spacesuits popular in the early 21st century. Instead what he got was a slim fitting white suit, with a small ovular helmet which reminded Sean of a fishbowl. Not that he was complaining, he much preferred this spacesuit over the ones he had pictured. His only complaint was that the suit, which had tightened to match his exact body shape, was giving him a massive wedgie.

They turned a corner and up ahead, Sean could see the light from the conference room beaming bright into the relative darkness of the hallway and, reacting on his need to see Sara again, took off in a dead sprint towards it. Nick did the same and followed closely behind. Sean burst through the entryway to the Hub, and as he did, Sara came running to him and threw her arms around him. Their helmets bumped together and made the sound of glasses being hit together. As he looked at her through his helmet, he saw the tears streaming down her face. The mascara she had put on this morning when he'd picked her up from her parent's house was now smeared all over her cheeks.

"Hey, what's wrong sweetie," Sean did his best to comfort her, which was slightly more difficult now when they were separated by fishbowls.

Sara, who was smiling despite her sobbing, squeezed him tighter, "I was so worried."

Sean couldn't help but smile back at that. Yes, Sara was crying, but she was crying because she was worried for him. "I would kiss you, but I sort of have a helmet on." He smiled even wider as Sara half laughed, half sobbed, and squeezed him even tighter. "I love you so much, Sara." This time his tone had changed from joking to slightly more serious.

"I love you too," Sara responded at almost a whisper. She didn't let go of him, instead just buried her helmet into his shoulder as her sobs slowed. Sean waited until her sobbing had completely stopped to let go of her.

"I'm going to go check on the Doctor," he said, and Sara nodded in agreement. She had stopped crying now and was just smiling.

"I love you," She said as Sean let go of her and began to walk towards the Doctor. Sean turned around and blew her a kiss through his helmet before turning back around and continuing to the Doctor.

The Doctor was bent over in the hallway just outside of the Hub, using the same tool on the door of the Generator Room that he had used to find Bevvie's remains.

"What is that thing, exactly," Sean asked as he took a seat beside the door that the Doctor was working on.

The Doctor looked at Sean, his steel grey eyes seeming to show a slight bit of frustration, before mellowing out into calmness, "oh this silly old thing," he flipped the tool in the air and then caught it, "It's my sonic screwdriver."

"What's it do?"

"I think it'd probably be quicker to give a list of what it doesn't do," the Doctor laughed and his eyes lit up as he flashed a toothy smile, "It doesn't pick up on radio waves, make tea, or write poetry."

"But it does everything else," Sean chuckled at the joke, which was the first he'd heard the Doctor make.

"Oh very nearly," the Doctor continued to smile as he went back to the door. "Right now, I'm using it to bypass the Mercury's subroutines, so we can open this door."

"I see," Sean responded. He didn't really see, but he figured the Doctor knew what he was doing, and figured it'd be easier not to ask. He paused for a second as the two sat in silence before asking, "So is this what you do, Doctor?"

The Doctor smiled once again and responded, "Well I guess that depends on what you mean by "this"."

Sean got the feeling the Doctor knew exactly what Sean was talking about, but instead the Doctor had decided to avoid the question.

"What I mean by this," Sean half laughed, "Is going around the universe saving people from monsters."

"Oh that," the Doctor pretended like he was sincerely surprised at Sean's observation. "Yes, for the most part. Although I swear it's mostly on accident. I seriously only _happen_ to stumble into these situations every other day."

They both laughed a little, then Sean continued, "Do you always do it alone?"

The Doctor stopped scanning for a moment and looked at the ground. His voice went low and gravelly and Sean could tell that that particular question pained him more than a little. As he went back to scanning he responded, "No not always. Normally I have," he paused for a second to think of the correct word, "companions who travel with me. The last one was a girl named Clara Oswald. Brilliant woman from what I remember of her. But she left a while back and I've been searching for her ever since." He paused for a second as if he was in pain, "I can't seem to find her though."

"Maybe you can't find her because she doesn't want to be found," as Sean finished that last sentence, he saw a look he hadn't seen in the Doctor's yet. He looked as if he was surprised, like he'd never stopped to consider that maybe she didn't want to be with him again. Then, the Doctor's expression changed as he buried the thought deep inside of him and quickly changed the subject.

"What about you," he asked, "Is talking someone down from suicide part of your daily routine?"

"How did you-"

The Doctor began to explain before Sean could even finish his sentence, "The captain had left his communicator on. We heard the whole thing."

Sean waited a second, and looked over at Corey and Mikey who had just entered the room a moment ago, "No that was definitely a new experience for me." He paused again and thought for a second. "a very new, very scary experience."

"It was a brave thing to do," the Doctor responded, "most people would've froze in that situation. You did really well."

"I guess," Sean responded, shrugging it off, "It was the right thing to do."

"Often times those are the same thing." The Doctor retorted, not taking his eyes off of the door or his Sonic Screwdriver.

Suddenly, screaming began and the sheer volume of it made Sean's skin crawl.

It all happened so fast. One second Corey was standing, talking to Mikey, and the very next he was on the ground screaming and flailing his limbs about, trying to fight off the invisible threat that was shredding his flesh. All Sean could think was somehow this was his fault. Corey had been right. It would've been less painful if he had just shot himself. But he refused to let that happen, just as he refused to let those thoughts sit in the forefront his mind. He pushed the thoughts back into the depths of his soul as he ran over to Corey trying to find someway to help.

Cory's eyes were wide. He didn't look like someone in pain, he looked like someone scared out of his mind. He looked like someone who knew he was about to die. And the worst part was he was staring right at Sean, seeming to blame him for not letting him kill himself. The screaming had stopped now, Corey was just shaking and staring at Sean.

"I don't want to die," Was the last thing Corey said before he went unconscious and the Vashta Nerada tore off the rest of his flesh, leaving nothing but a neat pile of bones.

Everyone sat there in silence for a second, in shock. Sean had seen plenty of tragedy in life, but this was new for him. Seeing a man die in such a brutal manner, a man that he had saved. Sean felt tears beginning to well up in his eyes, but held them back. Now wasn't the time to cry. Now was the time to get off of this ship alive. He stood up and walked over to Sara, who was staring at Corey in horror.

"It's okay sweetie," he said as he put his arm around her. He didn't actually believe that, but they both needed to hear it. Sean was terrified and he wanted someone to convince him that everything was going to be just fine.

"I'm so sorry," the Doctor said with his low gravelly voice. "I'm sorry for your loss, but you need to get away from that body as quickly as possible."

"How the hell can you say that," Isaboh flared.

Just as she spoke, the skeletal remains of Corey sprung up and grabbed a hold of Mikey's wrist. Mikey screamed, and Nick, probably reacting out of instinct, delivered a kick to Corey's arms. A crunching sound rang through the room as Nick's foot broke Corey's arm in half and broke his grip on Mikey.

"Come over here," the Doctor yelled and everyone did so quickly. Sean took Sara and stood in front of her, doing his best to shield her from Corey's animated skeletal remains.

"What's happening," Nick yelled to the Doctor as he took his gun at and held it out towards Corey.

"It's the Vashta Nerada," the Doctor yelled back, still working his screwdriver on the door. "They're using the space suit as a type of vessel. They must know what we're trying, so they're trying to kill us off quickly.

Nick began to shoot, and the sound of a gun being discharged in a small metal room made Sean's ears ring a little. The bullets were connecting with the space suit, and they were even slowing it down, however that was all that they were doing. The Vashta Nerada advanced closer to them as Nick continued to lay bullets into it.

"Doctor if you could hurry up," Sara yelled at him in panic.

"Almost…" The Doctor drew that last word out as long as possible before a ringing noise sounded from the screwdriver and the door to the generator room slid open. "Everyone in! Now!"

Everyone did so. Sean urged Sara to go first, then Isaboh and Mikey. The Doctor went next and Sean followed directly behind him, with Nick taking up the rear, continuing to fire at the ever approaching Vashta Nerada.

The generator room was anything but dark. Where there was a wall before, now there was nothing but a large hole, revealing the vast beauty of space. If Sean hadn't been running for his life at the moment, he would've stopped and admired the myriad of colors that were painted over the black canvas of space. The light from all the different stars, and nebulas, and galaxies seemed to texture the grey metal room with all their colors.

Suddenly, Sean remembered that he was running from his life as a feeling of utter terror came over him. He had no idea what it was, but it felt as if all of the hope and joy and the goodness was instantly sucked out of him.

Suddenly, searing pain started in his legs and Sean fell to the ground screaming.


	5. Follow Me Down Chapter 4

**Follow Me Down Chapter 4**

* * *

The pained and terrified screams of Sean Speakman filled the Doctor's ears as he began working on the generator. He looked at the scrapped hunk of metal and electrical work. A whole the size of freaking Big Ben was pierced through the middle of it and wiring of all sorts and colors was hanging out. Sparks flew from the ends of the loose wires and threatened to catch the Doctor's black and red coat aflame. Gunshots rang off from Nick's gun as Sara's cries and Sean's screams filled the room. The Doctor had to hurry. No one else was dying today.

 _No one else._

Quickly the Doctor flipped open his mental encyclopedia to generators. He'd actually worked with this specific model before, in his eighth life, and when the Doctor memorized something, like for instance a building manual for a generator, it stuck with him for a very, _very_ long time. He looked at the diagram on the in-mind manual, then back at the generator. It was missing a lot of different wires and a lot of hardware pieces were missing. But he would find a way to get it to work. he had to. Lives depended on it. Sean's screams intensified and the Doctor did his best to hurry.

What was absolutely essential that was missing? The power supply was there. And the electrical output was there. He looked back at the manual, then back at the generator. If he could just find some way to connect the power supply directly to the electrical outlet, without overloading the circuitry and burning out the generator. Sean's screams got louder and more frequent in the background, making the Doctor's blood boil. Sean wasn't going to hold on much longer.

The Doctor looked at the broken pieces of the generator, helpless. Connecting the power supply directly to the output wouldn't work, it would fry all of the circuitry if the current didn't have transformers to go through. The Doctor brainstormed, trying his best to fight the urge to run over and help Sean. There had to be someway to spread the power out, without using more equipment.

That was it! The Doctor found his solution as his hands began to move at lightning speed. Quickened by Sean's cries of pain, he began taking assortments of wires and soldering them together with his Sonic Screwdriver. The wires weren't meant to do that job, and when connected together in a long chain, would only carry a certain amount on electricity. If he used a long chain of wires, the electricity carried to the output should cause a surge in the ships machinery, which included the lights, just long enough to incapacitate the Vashta Nerada before the wiring burnt out.

He was almost done when the screams stopped and Sean faded into unconsciousness.

He had to hurry. The chain of wires were all together now and he used his sonic to solder them to the output, and was about to solder it to the power supply when his sonic screwdriver suddenly erupted into smoke. The Doctor threw the smoking hunk of metal and lights across the room as flames burst from it and burnt his hands.

The Doctor looked back. Sean was unconscious now an probably only had seconds to live. Nick was out of bullets now and had the spacesuit formerly known as Corey pinned to the ground in a desperate attempt to keep it away from the rest of the group. Sara and Mikey were both kneeling beside Sean, trying to wake him, and Isaboh was trying to help Nick hold the Vashta Nerada down. He had to save them, that was his duty, his job. He had to save them.

He looked back at the generator and knew what he had to do, and it might prove deadly to him. Ignoring the consequence, he took hold of the wire chain he had made in one hand, and with a deep breath grabbed onto the output to the power supply with the other hand. Immediately one-thousand volts of electricity were sent coursing through the Doctor's body as the electrical current flowed through him and into the ship's machinery, instantly sending the Doctor into an unconscious state.

* * *

The Doctor snapped awake to an almost familiar surrounding. He appeared to be in his TARDIS, just not his current one. The walls were clinically white, with white roundels indented into patterns on the wall. The room, instead of being a large circle like his current TARDIS was, was octagonal in shape, with a large white pillar standing where each wall connected. The Doctor picked himself off of the ground and walked over to the console, running his hands over the grey assortment of multicolored buttons. The time rotor protruded from the center of the console and three red tubular lights shined within it. He'd used this console room before, back when he was blond and thought that celery was an acceptable fashion accessory.

Out of the very corner of his eye he saw movement and turned to face it, but no-one was there. He turned back to the console and found the viewing screen. Furiously typing away at the keyboard, he tried to pull up his spacial coordinates. Instead, the screen began flashing the word "error" in all capital english letters.

"You aren't going to find the answer," a voice from the past sounded from behind him. Quickly, he spun around on his heels and was met with the sight of a short brunette woman with big brown eyes and a troublesome smile.

 _Clara._

"Oh I understand now," the Doctor stated dryly, "Im dreaming. I'm unconscious on the Mercury and I'm dreaming."

"Bingo! Top of the class," Clara responded, her tone jovial and playful. "I missed you, Doctor."

"No," the Doctor said simply before turning back towards the console and typing in the coordinates for Earth. Then, remembering he was dreaming, he turned back towards not-Clara, "I really don't have time for this nonsensery."

Clara started to frown in that one way that made the Doctor feel overwhelmed with guilt. At least that's what he imagined that look did, because after the memory wipe he'd had after fleeing Gallifrey he could barely remember anything about her.

"Doctor I just wanted to let you know-"

"Nope. Shut up." The Doctor covered his ears like a three year-old human child and chanted, "la la la la, I'm not listening."

"Doctor," Clara's voice went from sad to demanding, "Why won't you hear me out?"

"Because," the Doctor snapped at her, he was visibly upset now. His eyebrows slanted down into an angry expression and his voice was almost at a yell, "You aren't her! You aren't Clara. _Actual_ Clara can tell me whatever she wants when I find her."

"Doctor," her voice lowered to sorrowful, "Doctor, you aren't going to find me." She looked at him with those big brown eyes and he felt that she was right. But he refused to let fate win in this matter. He was the Doctor. He was the protector of the universe, the savior of Gallifrey, and he would be damned if he let fate decide anything else. Fate after all in all her cruelty had already taken so many away from him. Jamie, Romana, Adric, Ace, Lucie, Rose, the Ponds, and the list goes on and on. No more. He had already lost so many, he wasn't losing Clara too. Not Clara, who was perfectly innocent when he found her.

And there it was. Finally, the reason that he really was not able to let her go emerged from the darkness in his mind and came bubbling to the surface. He didn't want to let her go because he blamed himself. The Doctor blamed himself for everything he had put her through. For taking that innocent young girl, and turning her cold. For taking her, and dragging her through hell and back, through Trenzalore, through the loss of Danny Pink. And even after she'd given him all that she had, he continued to carry her along, until finally her ultimate devotion to him would be the literal death of her. And when she died there on that invisible street corner on Earth, the Doctor swore to himself. He swore to himself that he would save her. He would save her because he couldn't deal with the guilt of being her murderer.

The sting of tears began to well into the Doctor's eyes but he fought it with all he had. He was not giving up, he was not going to late fate win.

"Why," he managed to choke out through the emotions that had manifested themselves as the lump in his throat.

"Why what, Doctor?"

"Why would you leave? Why not come with me? Why abandon me and leave me alone?"

Clara took a step towards the Doctor and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. He wanted to fight back, but the feeling of him missing her caused him to instinctually wrap his arms around her.

"You daft old man," Clara whispered to him, standing on her tiptoes so she could reach his ear, "I left because I'm human. I'm supposed to whither away, and die, and you'd go to the ends of the earth to stop that. You'd break the universe over and over again just to see me smile one more day. And that isn't healthy. I need to fade away, and you need to go on. Find new companions, new adventures. You need to move on from me." She paused for a moment, still holding on to him. "And Doctor… I forgive you."

The Doctor squeezed her tight to him. She was right, she was always right, "Thank you so much, Clara." He desperately wished to find better words but that was all he could think of at the moment. "Thank you so much for everything."

Clara pulled back from him so he could see her face one last time, before giving him a kiss on the cheek, and sending a jolt through his body that plunged him back into consciousness.

* * *

Sean jumped back into the land of the living with a large gasp. He sprang upright, throwing the thin fleece-like blanket that had been laid over him off, and looking down at his legs. Last thing he remembered, he'd passed out from pain and blood loss after the Vashta Nerada had completely stripped the bottom half of his body of its flesh. Sean had on a pair of green and red plaid pajama pants and a loose grey t-shirt and he was definitely sure that was not what he was wearing before. He tried to think back to what had happened. He remembered Sara and Mikey standing over him as he was screaming in pain, then he remembered everything go dark as the pain overwhelmed him. He pulled up the pant legs of the pajama pants he was wearing and assured that his legs were still there. Sure enough, and to Sean's relief, they definitely were. But just in case, he poked and prodded at them just to ensure that he wasn't hallucinating. When he was satisfied that is legs were actually and properly in existence, Sean stood up and looked around the room.

He was in a bedroom of some sort, large yellowish-white roundels were indented into the white walls, and different light fixtures dangled from the ceiling. Over in the corner of the room by the door was a small loveseat with an assortment of different decorative pillows strewn across it. Paintings of different artists were framed and placed in random places throughout the room. This included a slightly crumpled sketch of a lady with a shattered clock for a face. Right next to the bed was a nightstand with a picture of a smiling woman with caramel colored hair wearing an impossibly long scarf sitting on what looked to be a metallic dog. Something gave him the feeling this was her room.

Just as he was about to pick the picture up to look closer at it, the door swung open wide and Sara ran in, threw her arms around him and proceeded to give him the longest, most passionate kiss she'd ever given him.

For a moment she pulled back and Sean saw she was smiling in a very large, almost goofy manor. "Well," Sean said, trying to collect his thoughts after having been kissed in such an intense fashion, "If I'd known you'd have kissed me like that, I would've almost died a long time ago."

Sara let out a helpless laugh and then, probably not knowing what to say, began kissing him again, this time gentler and with significantly less tongue. "I love you," she whispered in his ear as she stopped kissing him and pulled him in for a long hug. "I love you so much."

"I love you too, sweetie," he told her, loosening his grip on her then backing off just enough so he could see her face. "Where are we?"

This time the answer came from the Doctor, who was standing in the doorway, and Sean desperately hoped that he hadn't been there to witness the first kiss Sara had given him. "You're in the TARDIS, this is one of my friends' old rooms."

"Was it Clara's room, Doctor," Sean asked, hoping he had recalled the Doctor's friend's name correctly.

The Doctor simply smiled, and Sean could tell that since the time he had last seen him, the Doctor had received some sort of peace as to his feelings towards Clara. "No," he said simply but almost happily, "This room belonged to my friend Romana."

Sean smiled back at him, glad that the Doctor had found peace with Clara's departure, then decided he probably should get a fill in on what had happened since he was unconscious, "What about the crew of the Mercury? Is everyone okay?"

"They're all safe in the control room," the Doctor told him, "They're all perfectly healthy, way more so than you were when we brought you in here."

The Doctor telling him that reminded him. "Oh yeah, I'm okay, how is that possible? Last thing I remember I was being eaten alive."

"The TARDIS healed you," Sara said cheerfully, "You didn't even have legs when we got you out of that spacesuit. But the TARDIS somehow brought your legs back, like magic."

"Actually it wasn't magic, that would be daft," the Doctor corrected, "All the TARDIS did was bend time backwards slightly. You had enough residual time energy left over from your last trip in the TARDIS, that the old girl was able to bend time backwards ever so slightly, so that you were in the state you were earlier today, before the Vashta Nerada had partially devoured you. Understand?" Both Sean and Sara shook the heads no and the Doctor added, "that's because its basically magic." He shot them a smile and they both smiled back.

Sean looked back at Sara, his arms still wrapped around her, "I love you so much." When he said this, Sara began to passionately kiss him again, and the Doctor left the room, electing to give them some much needed alone time.

* * *

Captain Nick Romero peered out from the TARDIS doorway into the vastness of space. He'd never really seen it like this before. He'd of course seen it out of viewports of ships, but this was different. With nothing between him and the open universe, it felt a lot more intimate. He could feel the cold of space as he sat on the edge of the doorway, dangling his legs into the vast open blackness. Isaboh was sitting beside him, asleep with her head leaning over on his shoulder. Mikey was in the background sleeping on a recliner he had found in the console room of the Doctor's ship. They were exhausted, rightfully so. It'd been a long day, and they'd lost a lot of friends. They deserve a good bit of rest.

Behind him, Nick heard the Doctor walk up, "So, what are you and your crew going to do now?"

"I don't know," he told the Doctor, still not looking away from the amazing view in front of him, "We can't go back to the Mercury. Too many ghosts there." When he said that, he turned back so he could actually see the Doctor. "Any suggestions?"

The Doctor smiled, "Well that burst of light I gave them effectively killed the Vashta Nerada. If you want to, we can just leave the Mercury drifting as a ghost ship and I could drop you off at the nearest spaceport."

Nick nodded at the Doctor in agreement and turned back to look out the TARDIS doors. "It's beautiful isn't it?" Nick asked gesturing out towards the stars.

"Yeah, it is," the Doctor responded and Nick could've swore he'd heard a hint of hope in the Doctor's voice. "And you know what the best part is?" The Doctor came over being him, and leaned his body against the guard railing beside Nick.

"What's that Doctor," he asked, genuinely curious about what the Doctor was about to say.

"I get to see every bit of it," he said with a certain glimmer in his steel-grey eyes, and Nick couldn't tell if it was just his eyes, or if it was the starlight reflecting off of them. "Every single star, every single planet. I get to see all of it."

Nick looked back out among the stars and tried to imagine that. He tried to imagine visiting alien planets he'd never even imagined before, seeing new things and meeting new people. Saving civilizations, like the Doctor probably did.

"You could come with me," the Doctor said and Nick was caught a little of guard. "Back in the Mercury, you put yourself in danger to protect other more than once. I could really use someone like that traveling with me."

Nick looked at the Doctor in shock for a second before turning back to look out over the galaxy. It was a tempting offer to say the least, to be able to anywhere and anywhen in the universe. To be able to stand in places where no other human has ever stood before.

Nick closed his eyes and sighed sorrowfully. "Thanks Doctor, but I can't," he turned back and looked at the Doctor, "Between today and my military service, I've had more than my share of adventure in my life." He turned and kissed Isaboh on top of the head, "Besides, I have someone to look after now. I think I'll settle down after this escapade. I'll probably even ask Isaboh to marry me."

Nick could almost feel the Doctor's frown coming from behind him. "I understand," the Doctor said sadly.

"But those other two," Nick added, "Sean and Sara, they're a good lot. Smart, selfless, and young still. It's almost hard not to admire them. Keep those two around, if you can."

The two of them sat in silence for a moment as the Doctor contemplated what Nick had said. Then they both sat, staring out into space for a considerably long time.

* * *

"So I guess this is goodbye then," Sara asked Mikey, Isaboh, and Nick as everyone stood around the TARDIS console. The orange light coming off of the center column colored everyone's face with a faint orangey tint.

"Maybe not goodbye," Isaboh states, "I mean you guys can still come visit us right?"

"Actually, we're from the past remember," Sean reminded her. They had told Isaboh and Mikey the whole truth once they'd gotten aboard the TARDIS.

"Oh right," Isaboh responded, "then yes looks like this is goodbye."

"So where exactly are we parked right now," Mikey eyed the TARDIS scanner for the answer, then realizing that the readings were in some foreign language of circles that neither him nor Sara could understand, he turned his head to look at the Doctor for his answer.

"Valhalla, on the planet Korros," the Doctor said, and Sara noted that his voice sounded almost affectionate, or at least as affectionate as his harsh accent could sound.

"Exactly where we departed from," Nick confirmed

"And about three months after you first departed," the Doctor added, "That'll give you guys some time to think of a story to tell the Sorin company concerning what happened with their cargo." The Doctor bit on his index finger for a second, presumably thinking of what to say. "I would much appreciate it if you could keep me out of that report."

Isaboh began to open her mouth to argue, probably asking how the hell they were possibly going to not mention him in this report, but Nick cut her off before she could start speaking. "We'll think of something," He said with a smile. "We'd better be getting off."

With that the three of them said their goodbyes and exited the TARDIS, leaving the Sean, Sara, and the Doctor alone in the large orange TARDIS console room.

The Doctor began to type on the console, and with an almost look in his eye said, "Well, I guess next stop is Nashville, Earth, September 17th, 2017."

"I guess-"

Before Sara could even finish her sentence the Doctor began again, "Now there's two options here."

"How's that," Sean asked. He had ascended the staircase, and had picked up and started strumming on an electric guitar that the Doctor had sitting out. _Leave it to Sean to be able to find a guitar on an alien time-space machine._

"Well," the Doctor said, turning Sean's way and sitting on the console of the TARDIS, "We can go the direct route, or we can go the scenic route." The TARDIS itself made a beeping noise that seemed to be affirming what the Doctor was saying.

"The scenic route," Sara raised an eyebrow, she could see the mysteriously mischievous look in the Doctor's eyes.

"You know," he said, waving his arms around in the air in a very vague motion, "The universe is a rather large place. We don't have to go directly to Nashville. We could pop in on the planet Traken, or go meet the Ice Warriors of Mars. Oh or we can go meet the Zarbi of Vortis!" He seemed to say that last sentence in particular in a very excited manor.

"Are you asking us to travel with you," Sean asked, strumming the chords to what Sara recognized as Hotel California by The Eagles.

"In short, yes," the Doctor said, "any planet, any time, any place in the universe! What do you say?"

Sara gave a slight smile and looked at Sean in an almost playful manor, "What do you think? Think we could spare a few days?"

Sean had put the guitar down now and had ran down the stairs excitedly to stand beside Sara and the Doctor, "It's a time machine, we can spare a lot more than a few days."

The Doctor had a smile that went from ear to ear now. "So any request for your first proper trip in the TARDIS?"

"We can choose from anything?" Sara asked.

Sean however seemed to know that Sara had no idea where she wanted to go first as he said, "Surprise us. Dealer's choice."

"I can definitely do that."

With that, the Doctor typed in some time-spacial coordinates into the TARDIS's navigational computer, pulled a lever, and the TARDIS went sailing away into the time-space vortex towards its next adventure.

* * *

 **A/N: So? What'd you guys think? I had an absolute blast writing this story! I had such a blast writing Sean and Sara as characters, that I decided I was going to make a few other stories with Sean and Sara as the Doctor's companions! It might be a while until the next update, considering I have to plan out and write the storyboard for the next story. I can't wait to see where this story goes, and I hope you guys are as excited about this adventure as I am. Please leave a review telling me what you think! I love you guys!**

 **P.S. As an extra treat, I'm going to give you the synopsis I have written for the next story.**

* * *

 **Next Episode: Vacation**

 **An Egyptian sarcophagus floating up from the Thames. The body of a Telosian Cybermen suddenly materializing in the Globe Theatre. A Roman Centurion appearing in the middle of London's busy streets. These were just a few of the odd string of phenomena that had been terrorizing London the past week. When the Doctor, Sean, and Sara stumble onto an impossible plot set up by an even more impossible adversary, the TARDIS trio, with the help of one of the Doctor's oldest companions, must find a way to stop a plan that could destroy the rest of existence.**


End file.
